This is a free club challenge, if you will, where those that sign up agree to come up with one picture book idea everyday for the month of Nov. Sounds easy, right? HA. I dare you!

You don’t write a picture book every day, you “simply” create an idea for one. It’s like NaNoWriMo only it’s for the children’s book industry. There are other programs in Jan and Feb for you to hone those ideas and sculpt them into manuscripts; more on them later.

Dedication is key. Well, so is creativity, but I truly believe creativity can be cultivated. It doesn’t have be an innate skill you were born with. You can become creative if you put the effort in and learn. [Shout out to Malcolm Gladwell and his Outliers concept]

The main reason I love this challenge is because it forces daily effort and commitment to writing. Carpools, soccer games, messy kitchens…they are all gonna be there. So will writing time, if you choose to make it so.

How fun and challenging…so that just got my head spinning. I come up with “book ideas” all the time but I don’t write them down. On this challenge do you give the whole storyline or just an idea, title?

You can add as much detail as you want. Mostly I write down keywords that will help me remember the idea later. One example is “ABC book, spell out numbers from languages around the world, kindergarten school/library audience.” Or “birthday party for long distance grandma” kind of thing. Maybe even “Pumpkins.” I don’t start writing or researching any of it because it’s supposed to be more brainstorming, less fleshing out of ideas. If I’m on a creative roll I don’t force myself to stop…but in those (rare?) cases I try to open up a manuscript I’m already working on, I mean, no sense shutting off the lightbulb.

If you’re gonna go for it (do it! do it!), don’t cross off any idea you come up with, no matter how off the wall it may seem. Who knows, it might lead you to a better idea later on.